University of Akron scientists welcome $1 million

08/09/2013

Viscous when hot, and rigid when cold, glass poses one of physics’ greatest mysteries: How does glass solidify from a liquid? What could we create if we better understood the properties of glassy materials?

More advanced glasses could mean smartphones that wrap around the wrist or capsules that preserve drugs against temperature variation or flexible sheets of solar cells or membranes that pull salt out of seawater.

Three University of Akron researchers hoping to uncover the mysteries of glass formation have received a $1 million grant from the prestigious and highly selective W.M. Keck Foundation.